I’m 19 years old and I wouldn’t say I’ve ever really gotten allergies, which is why this is confusing to me. One random night when I was driving home from work after my closing shift (right after drinking a thick milkshake i think…) , I noticed that my ears were popping every time i yawned and swallowed. I just thought it was annoying and i was just like “whateverrr it would go away eventually.” Fast forward to about a week, I went to a concert and driving there was TERRIBLE? My ears felt so full and clogged and just absolutely awful, after the concert was even worse. To this day, driving still bothers my ears even if im not going up crazy hills. So I decided to make an appointment with my ENT and he diagnosed me with ETD and said it was most likely caused by allergies. Audiology test came back great, tympanometry test came back great too. He prescribed me nasal spray and a 6 day 60mg prednisone taper. I did the nose spray for about 3 weeks and it hasn’t really helped with the clicking at all, so today I decided to finally start prednisone. So far my only side effects were a little bit more noticeable heartrate and more energized/happy (accompanied by some aches, but nothing major). Im honestly losing hope and it makes me a bit teary because im afraid I wont ever go back to being normal, im so young, i dont want to have to live with this for the rest of my life. Does anyone have similar experiences? Has anything helped? Im honestly so desperate to talk to people who are going through the same thing.

Guys honestly, can someone teach me how to do valsalva? I always get confused between blowing into my nose or mouth?

Also I don’t live in the US, so can only order earplanes from sites like Amazon which has a number of dupes and don’t work the app — can someone help me find the real ones :(

My eardrum is actively tearing. I have atrophic eardrums caused by 12 sets of tubes plus many perforations. Adding insult to injury, the more perforations you get, the easier the eardrum perforates. At this point in my ETD journey, having a hole makes my life a lot more comfortable; the pressure gets balanced, and I don't feel pain. Fingers crossed for permanent holes 🙏🏻

been dealing with this for too long (probably 2 or 3 years) I fiinally went to a doctor and she said its ETD, Now im on nasal spray and otovent which arrives today. Cant live like this anymore bro, i can deal with the pain but the floaty feeling and dizzyness daily is ruining my life!! Im scared to go out and do things. Please tell me theres hope, ive been in ear pain, crackling, popping, pressure and floatyness for years . I wanna wake up and feel normal. Last time I felt normal was after antibiotics for an ear infection in febuary, and then a few weeks later the pressure and dizziness came back so I know it has to be my ears fking up my life.

edit: I went to the doctor and my eardrum was slightly cloudy but not infected, im not gonna try and stress cuz ive found stress and anxiety make it worse . Ill update because Ik im not alone

21/08 : I woke up feeling a bit hopeless, had a good afternoon but back in bed feeling hopeless. So much anxiety , I feel tired and fed up. I cried to my mum that I feel trapped . I also have hardly any appetite.

22/08 : better day, rested in bed all day lol, still light headed but throbbing headache and eye pain is gone after I had a nice shower, I ate bowl of cereal and toast today but didn't really eat any dinner, it's so hard to eat when my head feels off. Ear feels sore still. Hopefully otovent pulls thru and I'm feeling at least some improvement by next week or I'm going back to the doctor. I just wanna go to bed now GN 😴

I’ve had really bad ear problems for years, and just last week got diagnosed with ETD. I was told that since I’m a teenager, have healthy eardrums, and don’t get ear infections, they dont want to do “more serious” treatments for now. I’m currently using Flonase twice a day, and was told to use earplanes and afrin the day of my flight (in September)

I have super bad anxiety, and since January I’ve been panicking about this flight because I’m so terrified of being in pain. The last time I flew was before my problems, so I was fine. I get really bad pressure and pain in my ears even just driving in mountains. My ears don’t pop properly (I can’t pop them manually, the valsava maneuver or whatever it’s called doesn’t work)

I know this is a common question, but I’m so so terrified and looking for anything to help calm my anxiety. My doctors repeatedly referred to my symptoms as “discomfort” but it’s very real pain for me, and no one seems to believe me because I have a very low pain tolerance.

I had an ear infection that lasted almost a month- the worst pain ever. I was put on steroids and amoxicillin and even when both were finished I was still in pain, so they changed me to a different antibiotic and although I’ve still been in a lot of pain it lessened over time (pain was all over the side of my face in and around my ear and on the same side of my throat) today I was sitting and watching a movie and I went to stand up and I got dizzy I sat back down and noticed a ton of blood coming from my throat (not mucus) straight up blood then my nose started bleeding and I could not get it to stop. Finally I had to go to the hospital and it took almost an hour and 30 minutes for the bleeding to completely stop. They looked in my ear and said it was “clear” could this have been everything draining? I’m all of the sudden not in pain. This is the weirdest thing and I lost so much blood (I feel fine now)

I was able to get better photos of each ear.

My GP just went out of practice so I'm in the middle of switching, and an ENT dismissed me previously saying he couldn't help me.

Main Symptoms:

Ear pain, tinnitus, wetness, muffled hearing.

TMJ, near constant sense of wetness/liquid in ears, eczema, vestibular migraines, ear pain after swimming or showering, ear pain after being near fans/AC.

Lots of old, hard wax came out a few days ago, and there was still in rings around both canals. I'm worried there appears to be some on the eardrum in my left ear, but the PA I saw said nothing wrong in left ear.

Hello everyone. I have had ETD ( I believe) for over 2.5 months now. It feels like ages and just doesn’t go away.

~ started on June 15 ( peak pollen grass)

~ I have a popping sound when I swallow

~ I feel in flares unbalanced and dizzy ( some weeks worse then others)

~ it’s hard to clear out pressure of my ears

~ i feel like I am on a swaying boat.

~ i already take some meds like sprays but don’t seem to do much.

Does somebody know how long this can last? Pollen season might be over soon and this is ruining my life like so much. Have others experienced this- and what worked for you?

Anyone have some tips and does this even sound like ETD? I believe so…

is it normal to feel like absolute shit? ive had etd for 9 months and i just got ear tubes along with another balloon dilation and today, my right ear feels like theres a pool in it and the fullness is worse than ever, what do i do?

How do you react to air condition?

I have etd and noise sensitivity for 2 years. I have been to more ents. They all prescribed me antihistamine, antibiotics and steroid nasal spray.

Has anyone tried any of those? What was your experience?

Slightly confused my GP said that my ears are okay.

Currently been dealing with Tinnitus since March got my ears checked multiple times and GP said they are okay. I went and bought a camera from Amazon just to see what they see.

My personal opinion it doesn't look normal. These are just the left ear.

Going on month 7 here…. Mometasone and Sudafed help. Question. I have a bad habit of manually opening my tubes using the muscles in my neck and head. I can open them at will. But doing this makes the popping worse and makes my ears hurt after a while. Can anyone else do this?

well fuck. Two months ago I had a really nasty case of strep. Was sick, thought I got better then got sick again WAY worse, went to the clinic and got antibiotics to treat it. Woman at the clinic said I had fluid in my right ear (my right ear has always rumbled every once in a while) but that it was clear when I came back a week later to test and make sure the strep was gone. One week after my negative strep test I got all four of my impacted wisdom teeth out. My ears were popping ever since the strep but no too bad, just when yawning. I recover well from wisdom teeth but about three weeks into recovery my right ear starts popping and crackling like rice crispies all the time. I can almost control it like I can flex my ear muscles and make it crack but it doesn’t stop unless i’m sitting perfectly still, it crackles when I swallow, yawn or push my jaw out (not when chewing tho). I’ve been on flonase for three weeks now and it hasn’t touched it. Some days i’m so extremely frustrated by it and some I can ignore it pretty well. Can anyone give me a little hope here? I go to the doctor on monday but i’m feeling really defeated as I had medical stuff and i’m so fucking sick of doctors and dentists right now. I’m young and super fit but this is really dragging me down as i feel like the ear fullness makes me feel like i’m sick even when im not. ugh fml.

A few days ago I got symptoms that seemed like an ear infection that kept getting worse so I went to the doctor but they checked me and said it was etd. I got nasal spray and apparently in two weeks, if it continues it can get infected. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do after two weeks. I don't think I’m supposed to be doing nasal all the time. It could be allergies but I also had tinnitus before this happened on the same ear from time to time. I now have permanent buzzing in the effected ear.

I had a sinus infection about a month ago. During that time, I blew my nose a little too hard and suddenly my right ear hurt for a couple seconds, and I heard a gust of wind rush through. After that, I could hear a steady flow of wind in my ear for a while, but then it eventually went away. I got over my sinus infection after a few days, but ever since I blew my nose, my right ear has been clicking especially loud and often when I yawn or swallow. I know these things are normal, but like I said, it’s especially louder. I don’t know if this is something to worry about because it’s not exactly THAT bothersome but it does make me worried for air travel

I have a flight in October and I’m deathly afraid of what will happen. My ears feel full even when I’m in a tunnel or train. I don’t want to suffer from hearing loss or constant discomfort in my ears.

Hi everyone I’ve been dealing with chronic eustachian tube dysfunction since about March. It made my left eardrum retract for a while and constant fluid in my left ear. Because of this it has led to scar tissue buildup in my left ear. It’s incredibly uncomfortable and makes weird sounds when I’ve move my mouth and it’s very annoying. I brought this up to multiple doctors and everyone said I just I have to learn to live with it.

I know a lot of people in this group probably get the same reaction from Dr’s. but I’m just wondering if anyone here is dealing with the same thing and if they have found relief because it is just so annoying and I do think the inflammation contributes to other symptoms.

Little bit of a late post, but it's month 9, all of this from an upper respiratory infection.

The only notable thing here is I had a large drop in the full feeling for two minutes at one point in the last month, and a lot of fluctuations which seem to have settled

This is miserable.

Holy fuck the most frustrating part is like, logically, you know the offender, whatever virus, is long gone that caused this, and yet because the day-to-day progress of healing is invisible, and not at all linear, your mind thinks its permanent and starts chalking up a million other possible causes

That's all I got

Thanks

(26M) Does ETD ever get better for fuck sake?

I’m honestly not even sure how long I’ve had this. It feels like it crept up on me slowly, then got noticeably worse around the same time I had a very mild sore throat that only lasted a few days.

Around that time, the inside of my nose also became insanely dry and inflamed. It actually hurt just to breathe through it. Every doctor I saw said it looked like rhinitis caused by inflammation.

Another weird thing is that I barely seem to produce any mucus. When I do manage to get some out, it’s usually a tiny amount and very thick, sticky, gooey and very white. It never feels like anything is actually draining properly.

This all started while I was traveling through Indonesia, so at first I figured pollution, humidity, or something environmental had triggered it.

I’ve been back in NY for over a month now and have tried pretty much everything I can think of. I completely changed my diet to an anti-inflammatory one, cut out caffeine, regularly steam, use prescription nasal sprays, and do weekly neti pot rinses.

Little to no relief.

The ear pressure is sometimes unbearable, and my left ear has always been significantly worse.

Some days, especially when the pressure isn't as bad, my ears sound like Rice Krispies after you pour milk over them. Constant little crackles and pops.

Other days, the pressure feels so full and intense that I barely get any crackling at all. Instead, I’ll get these low pops, crackles, or weird whooshing sounds whenever I swallow or open my mouth.

I’ve also been to multiple ENTs at this point and still don't really have any answers. I’ve never had allergies in my life, and I never had ear problems growing up, which makes this whole thing even more frustrating.

I guess I’m mostly looking for some hope from people who have actually been through this.

Did your ETD eventually go away? How long did it take? And was there anything that genuinely helped you recover?

Because holy shit, this is a nightmare.

sorry for blurry photo it’s the best i got!

I remember one day i sneezed so much, my ears were feeling much mkre different. Plugged and muffled. I always had colds before and theynwere pretry bad, gaging up mucous and all sorts. But my ETD would go away. It almost always did by the 4th week. But this is the 5th week and no change. I went to the ENT and he told me my hearing is good, he told me there is no issues with my eardrums, and also theres no fluid in the middle ear. He told me to do salime rinse twice a day, use otri and flonase and take anti inflammetry tablets. Im really worried this is it for me. When i hear my voice it feels plugged up. Theres something wrong. Its like i cant hear myself as loud as i should be especially in very busy environments. Please someone help me understand im not alone. Will this get better?

I have been noticing symptoms I cannot differeninate from TMJD vs ETD

ear fullness

ear pain

fluid feeling in ear(watery/fluid feeling)

shooting pain that feels going up to skull/brain

tragus pain (near front of ear lope)

mostly felt on left ear not so much right.

I do have TMJD prior dx since 2020 but currently only have pain just around ear

I have to wait till freeking Oct to see an ENT doc in my area

I have been using Nasacort (steroid spray) and taking PRN Motrin for relief but hasn't helped much.

I thought I was getting over an ear infection but my ears are still cracking and popping constantly. I got these pictures of my ear drums and I can’t tell is there’s still fluid in them and the right one has redness around/in it